USB and Thunderbolt
The dominant peripheral standards in 2023—and likely for the next decade…or century—are USB and Thunderbolt. These two standards have swept up nearly every other purpose inside their scope.
On a computer with just a USB 3 or USB4 port, you can pass data up to 40 Gbps, video, and power up to 240 W; on a device with Thunderbolt 4, you can also pass 40 Gbps of data, video, Ethernet, PCIe (for external GPUs and other high-speed purposes), and power up to 100 W. (Some day soon, you’ll be able to pass up to 80 Gbps in each direction or as much as 120 Gbps of video data in one direction.)
The big difference to you between the standards is whether, when you purchase a new computer or peripheral, it includes a USB4 or Thunderbolt ...
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